Onbedoeld

Doel is a 700-year old village in the Flemish polder aside the river Scheldt, north of the port of Antwerp also right next to the nuclear plant. The expanding port threatens the village from the 1970s on. Hereby sacrificing local rural communities and heritage (farms, villages and landscape) to industrial interests in an area of about 15 km2.

Today the destruction of Doel and its polders for the expansion of the harbour is economically not viable. Village and polder are designated as residential and agrarian area with historical value. The government did everything to leave the properties they acquired susceptible to decay and plunder. That gave rise to the argument that ‘polder’ heritage is without worth and can be torn down.

Most of Doel’s former residents have long-since left, but a handful refused to leave and they continue to fight for their home. These days only around 15 people live there, and most of the buildings are boarded up and empty.